It will never have the panache of “Bombs bursting in air” but someone in Alberta needs to write a patriotic song about the products of Alberta’s tar sands. The current battle between Alberta politicians and Montreal area mayors is on that grand a scale. In a battle between Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre and TransCanada Pipelines […]
Continue readingAuthor: Peter Lowry
Babel-on-the-Bay: Justin’s chorus demonizes first-past-the-post.
Nowhere in the Canadian voting handbook does it say that we are committed to voting for all the promises of the party we choose in an election. Even as a card-carrying Liberal, we have the right to tell the Prime Minister that one of his promises is foolish and should not happen. Specifically, his promise […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: You betcha it’s the Trump team!
The leaders of America’s Republican Party have already picked the team that will take on the world when it wins the November election. They are betting on billionaire Donald Trump and the former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. And here you thought that the Republicans would want to temper Trump’s tirades with a more politically acceptable […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Will nobody come to Canada’s party?
Canada will be 150-years old next year. Even the Harper Conservatives were going to celebrate that. As it looks now, there might not be much of a party. “Hard times” we are told. The private sector wants to save its money. The public sector does not want to be seen spending money. So cake and […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Babel-on-the-Bay gets its share of comments.
Readers must have thought we were asking for comments the other day when we wrote about a “Path for New Democrat Mulcair.” The discussion of a merger of the Liberals and NDP is certainly a lightening rod subject. Mind you the first reader to contact us wanted to know the meaning of the term “promiscuous […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Postmedia should axe Paul Godfrey.
Watching Postmedia bleed red ink is a Canadian pastime on the scale of the vanishing tar sands and those perennial losers, Toronto’s hockey team. The difference is that the tar sands were done in by the Saudis and the Maple Leaf team owners do not care because the fans pay anyway. It is Paul Godfrey’s […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: A path for New Democrat Mulcair.
This might generate more sour e-mails from annoyed socialists but it needs to be said: New Democrat Leader Tom Mulcair does have a role to play in Canadian politics. While Babel-on-the-Bay knew his mission to keep the NDP in second place in parliament was doomed throughout 2015, we hold to our suggestion of the time. […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Rosie jumps in where soldiers fear to tread.
The Toronto Star’s Rosie DiManno has all the answers about the war against the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Her advice to the new Trudeau government ran Monday in the Star. Keep our F-18s in the Mid-East she advises. She has little understanding of what that costs and the small amount […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In defence of our nation’s capital.
Ottawa is a wonderful city. No it is not Paris. Paris is a city in its own right. France needs Paris because that is where the action is. It creates the culture. To most Parisians the location of France’s seat of government is irrelevant to their daily lives. And in some ways, you could say […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Sub-Continent votes won’t help Brown.
He must be joking. Toronto Star writer Martin Regg Cohn tells us that there is some sort of contest going on for the votes of the Sub-Continent Diaspora in Ontario. If Opposition Leader Patrick Brown and Premier Kathleen Wynn are really in this contest, it seems like a foolish expense for a larger portion of […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: O’Leary is out of his league.
If there was any redemption for the Dragons’ Den show on CBC television it was not financier Kevin O’Leary. He represented what we have always seen as the weakness of Canadian venture capitalists. He always seemed to represent the type of venture fund that demands to put their own face on the ideas of others. […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The charmed life of Justin Trudeau.
It started over morning coffee. The wife was lamenting the price of cauliflower. Frankly, she was the only one at the table who gave a damn about cauliflower. We had to listen anyway. And somehow the conversation got around to Prime Minister Trudeau. There was a front-page picture of him at Toronto City Hall. The […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: What? Ontario politics corrupt?
The reason this writer has retained a membership in the Ontario Liberal Party for many years has nothing to do with approving what is going on. It is the belief that the change that is so desperately needed has to come from within the party. Nobody can effect the reforms needed from outside. Any long-term […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: There’s more to electoral reform than voting.
Before you get to vote for a candidate or a political party in a general election much needs to happen. There are various aspects of our political system involved and they all have an impact on the quality of our democracy. And, on a scale of one to ten, our democracy has been at about […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Time for Republicans to act grown-up.
Sitting here in Canada and looking south gives us an overview of American politics. It is only recently that there has been a lot of cringing from what we are seeing. Republican candidate Donald Trump brings an entirely new depth of despair to the race for the U.S. Presidency. He seems to have too few […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Blair gets to bungle the pot boondoggle.
Frankly, this writer could care less about legalized marijuana. That is by way of disclosure before commenting on former Toronto police boss Bill Blair taking over the pot file for Justin Trudeau and the Liberals. We suppose that if you really want something screwed up, giving it to Bill Blair to implement might be the […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Brown takes fellow Tories for a ride.
It was the picture of Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown on an elephant with one of his Ontario Conservative caucus mates that has already won picture of the year for us. When you think of how many times Brown has visited India on the Canadian taxpayers’ money, you would think the people of the sub-continent […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The Saudis are not Canada’s friends.
If you wanted to find opposites in the world of international relations, you could not find countries as contrary to each other as Canada and Saudi Arabia. When people refer to the Saudis as the Kingdom, it is not a friendly term. It is reality. And a country such as Canada is anathema to everything […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Some sensible solutions for the Senate.
Justin Trudeau needs a shake. That elitist crap he keeps coming out with about the Senate of Canada shows he needs something. We well understand that he is afraid of anything that might smack of a constitutional change but he has to realize that there are many diverse audiences to satisfy before making any change […]
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Waiting for Woodbine.
It was last July that Toronto City Council finally agreed that the Woodbine Entertainment facilities in Rexdale could become a full-fledged resort casino. Now we wait. It is hardly going to happen overnight. It is just that we have high hopes for Woodbine to become the premier casino resort location in Canada. Of course, we […]
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